Write One Page Per Day – 16/365 – January 16, 2018

“We left as fast as we could. We barely even had food. We were all so scared. We only made it over to the next state before we ran out of gas. We started walking, along with a lot of other people, on the highway. Government vehicles were passing us going both directions. No one knew what was going on at that point, and the government wasn’t doing anything. No one had heard from the White House, Congress, or Senate, and the military wasn’t stopping to help us.

“The light was still coming from the sky when the sun went down. We could see the cylinders descending in their blazing glory, but not the cities at their bases. That first night we fell asleep in a bus, you kept watch while mom and us slept. You woke us up after only a few hours in a panic, the lights were getting bigger now, and we had to run again.

“We were running through Alabama, on foot down I-20. The lights were scouring everything as they grew and began to move. It looked like they were searching, but everywhere the light reached, the people would vanish. We didn’t know exactly what was happening, but we knew that if you got caught by the light you wouldn’t come back.

“When the light got close to us, we got off the highway and hid under an overpass. That’s were we were, in Riverside, hiding under the overpass when I first saw them. The things in the light. The light circled overhead, making everything so bright it was hard to see. You shoved Anna and me further into the overpass where it met the road above as these mechanical arms came under the bridge and grabbed both you and mom.

“We were sitting there, waiting for you to come back. For hours we waited after the light moved on. We didn’t know where you had gone, but we knew you had to come back. You and Mom were the two that always came back. It was nightfall before anyone found us, huddled and crying in each others’ arms.